


The Red King

by TheRavenintheMoon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, a mash-up of references to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRavenintheMoon/pseuds/TheRavenintheMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has bad dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Red King

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own neither Doctor Who nor "Alice in Wonderland"/"Through the Looking Glass."

The Red King

The Doctor rarely slept, but when he did he had bad dreams. It was inevitable that he should; with everything he had seen and done and lost, it would have been a wonder if he did not have bad dreams. And because the Doctor was lucky, he could do without much sleep, could find a problem to turn over in his mind and keep himself awake so he could do as he always did and run away from the things that frightened him.

He'd met Lewis Carroll once, on the day that he'd destroyed an alien illusionist that was so far from home, creating strange visions to tempt people into his labyrinth—and the Doctor had realized that he dreamed in Wonderland. The Doctor's dreams were such strange, terrible things. All the wonders and terrors he had seen were reduced to the people he had lost. And always, he was one of the indifferent creatures on some poor Alice's path, taking a momentary interest and then turning his back and letting her walk on and on until she woke alone in the real world. But the dangers in his dreams were not the dangers of Wonderland. Alice never got hurt because the dream moved on, took her away. It was her dream and she could not lose. In the Doctor's dreams, his poor Alices always lost. They never made it to the eighth square; they never had the chance to dislike being queen.

The Doctor could almost have lived with these nightmares, if it hadn't been for one in particular. It was always the same: he stood outside himself, invisible, and watched as Tweedledee and Tweedledum pulled the latest Alice over to the snoring Red King. They told her that she wasn't real, that she was only a figment of the Red King's dreaming imagination. And as she cried, trying to find a way to prove that she was real and consequently more than just a dream, he always noticed that the Red King wore the Doctor's face.

And the worst part was that it was true. In a way, he lived in a Wonderland, always whirling along the rabbit hole of the vortex and on to the next strange, wonderful, and terrifying encounter. And when he slept, for sleep inevitably dropped on him when he was not expecting it and could no longer hold it off for the sheer exhaustion consuming him, he dreamed the Red King's dream, and held the world together, knowing that if he woke, it would all fall apart.

And so he keeps on running. He never looks back in fear that it will end, that the dream will be over, and the void will consume him. For without the dream there is no Wonderland, and the Doctor knows that he cannot live in a world of someone else's making. He will run forever, dreaming the dream of the Red King, making this world into a Wonderland where one need never fear—every day is an adventure, and every day an Alice steps through the Looking Glass into the dream and begins her quest. And one day, he just may find an Alice who reaches the eighth square and wakes in wonder at all that she has seen.


End file.
